//------------------------------//
// Make Love 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

Things were going smoothly. Everything was fine, everything was perfectly alright. It was unnerving. Or maybe it was the way Stella circled around the room with a smile constantly plasterers onto her face that really bothered Chrysalis. The way she seemed to be taunting her. Her own personal demon only she could see, like she was haunted or going insane. 
The changeling tried her hardest to focus on the microscope in front of her instead of the alicorn staring at her from across the table. For the most part, she'd been doing exactly what the stallion she was impersonating would have. Replicating the daily activities of a creature was still part of a changeling's natural talents, after all, and while in better times such tasks would have been far beneath her station the present lack of resources meant even she had to lower herself to that level.
If only because the absolute failure of a worker who thought of herself as a queen had refused to partake. Chrysalis bit down and swallowed her venom, reminding herself yet again that it did no favours to her or the mission to focus on Stellaria. It was what that waste of magic energy wanted. Still, she could not help but regret ever having conceived of creating her. But thinking that involved thinking about her actions as a mistake, something the changeling's distaste for had only grown stronger since her meeting with Stella.
Twilight Sparkle's castle was as fascinating as the last time she'd set hoof in it, perhaps even more so. It reminded her of her own hive, in a way. The way it so clearly could shift its shape to accommodate for its inhabitants' needs, the pervasive feeling of magic in its very structure, in the floor beneath her and the walls around her, almost sizzling in the air of the rooms and corridors inside it. She was, indeed, quite thankful it wasn't capable of detecting changelings. Or perhaps it could, but hadn't found a way to alert its owner yet.
She was a bit less thankful for how it didn't show the same eagerness as its mother when it came to taking care of fake ponies born from trees. She assumed the Tree of Harmony didn't have a problem with being referred to as female considering how she chose to appear to others. Though maybe that had changed after it had died and come back. Maybe she really had gone insane, with her pondering the intricacies of a family made of crystal trees. But then, maybe she'd also been born from one. So went one of the stories, at least.
Chrysalis had gotten so caught up in her own thoughts she almost jumped when a very light spark of electricity zapped her hind legs. She looked to Stella, then focused back onto her task. For once, the alicorn seemed to care more about the success of the operation than about tormenting her. She didn't want to be caught getting distracted on the job, after all.